Here were my goals for July. The month isn't quite over yet, but I can pretty safely assess my progress.
1. Play enough to win the monthly TLB on AP (challenge)
Moved to Stars...didn't get this one done.
2. Don't be results oriented
Did pretty well here
3. World Domination (work in progress)
Making progress...still a ways to go here...someday
4. Don't tilt and play nl cash
D'oh! Didn't really tilt, but definitely played alot of nl cash on stars for a change of pace...I guess I'm just destined to always need a break from the grind and switch things up...meh.
5. Destroy the 109 level and don't doubt myself at that level.
Check. Killed this game before I decided to move.
So the big question: Why the move to Stars? Well, basically, I'm tired of the BS at AP. Its just retarded. I paid them about 30k in rake this year, and they kept coming up with dumb excuses as to why I could not recieve reload bonuses for $200 a peice. Absolutely the dumbest thing I've ever seen. You just alienated one of the top 5 tournament rake generators on your site. Good thinking. Way to go. I'm gonna go where my business is appreciated...or at least I'm made to feel that way. Peace.
I'm playing the 27s on Stars this month just to get a feel for the game again and to figure out how many tables I can realistically play without too much dropoff in my play. On August 1 I'll move up to the 60s and hopefully not look back. Its pretty clear that I'm as good as anyone in the 27s, but we'll see about the 60s. I always lack a bit of confidence moving up and I usually find that people aren't that much better...again...we'll see what happens. In any case I'm more than adequately rolled for the 60s so if I have a big downswing or I just don't think I'm a winner I can move back down and be fine.
Here are my goals for August:
1500 60s
Continued progress towards world domination
Have fun playing the game - I need to be PLAYING poker...not working poker...I haven't done a good job of this in quite some time
That's about it for this month. Pretty simple.
Next, I'm going to answer a question that I recently recieved. Someone recently noticed me at a large number of turbo sit n go tables. The question was asked: How do you play so many tables? Well, I don't really do anything special. I just play my game. I've been playing SNGs for about 3 years now and using a basic, ICM pushbot, its fairly easy to play a large amount of tables because almost every decision in SNG play is a no brainer. There are a few basic steps to successful multitabling. For starters, you need to be a winning player at a single table. Sooooo many people who are terrible at SNGs have a short term upswing, think they're great players, start playing more tables, have their luck run out, and bust. Then they think that its a result of multitabling. In reality, they just aren't winning players. So, make sure you are a winning player. Talk to other winning players, post hands on forums, and constantly try to improve your game. When you can be sure you're a winning player playing one table, its time to expand to more tables. At this point its basically a question of personal comfort. At first, two tables will seem rushed. Then, after a while, two will seem easy, and you can add more. After you add a few more two will seem really slow. From that point, its just a matter of adding tables as you feel comfortable adding more. At some point, you'll reach a sort of breaking point at which your hourly rate decreases by playing more tables because the quality of their play decreases due to playing too many tables. This # is different for everyone. Some people can play 20+ tables and not lose much profitability. Personally, anything over 12 and my decision making starts to suffer. Normally, I'm somewhere between 8 and 12 tables depending on how many I have on the bubble or in the money. If I have like 5 tables at that point and I bust one, I'll probably wait a few minutes to start another since its important to focus on those tournaments that are in that stage.
I hope this was helpful. If anyone else has a question they'd like me to address leave a comment here or email me at absolutepokeraccount@hotmail.com
Friday, July 27, 2007
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Sooooooooo...I shipped the 1k for that prop bet plus another 200 because a guy bet me that I couldn't hit 40k TLB points for the week on AP. That was a bad idea for him. I basically got that done a day early and completely destroyed the other two guys who were in the bet. So that was a nice 1.2k just for playing for the week plus another 4.5k for the week in winnings. I've moved up now and I'm playing a mix up $71 and $109 sngs on AP. These are so ridiculously soft its just amazing. I love it. That's that.
I've started making monthly goals so here they are for July:
1. Play enough to win the monthly TLB on AP (challenge)
2. Don't be results oriented
3. World Domination (work in progress)
4. Don't tilt and play nl cash
5. Destroy the 109 level and don't doubt myself at that level.
I've started making monthly goals so here they are for July:
1. Play enough to win the monthly TLB on AP (challenge)
2. Don't be results oriented
3. World Domination (work in progress)
4. Don't tilt and play nl cash
5. Destroy the 109 level and don't doubt myself at that level.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Side bet that I WILL ship
So I'm in a TLB race next week on AP. Three of us are putting up $333 so there's gonna be basically a 1k pool. There's basically very little chance that I won't win this. One of the guys is getting a 1.5:1 handicap but he still doesn't play high enough to compensate for this. Nor do I think he'll play the type of crazy volume that I think I will. The other guy is really good, but I think I can play more volume than him. I'm pretty confident...now its just a matter of me putting in the hours and shipping it.
If you want to follow my progress you can do so in this thread.
If you want to follow my progress you can do so in this thread.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Ship it one time...
I'm currently 13 of 177 at the second break of the AP 60k Sunday tourney. First takes down over 15k. That would be sooooo nice. I just reached Elite VIP at AP so now I'm pretty much gonna have enough Absolute Reward Points to buy into the Saturday 150k and the Sunday 60k for free every week. Nice! I'll update as the night goes on...unless something catastrophic happens and I just completely forget.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
JUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I played 1000 SNGs last month. I won about $2850. I've played about 150 SNGs this month. I've won about $2850. Go figure. I'm glad April is over!
Friday, June 1, 2007
HHHHHHHHHokay
May is over. Exhale. I HATED poker last month. I played exactly 1000 SNGs in May for a profit of just under 3k. That's WAAAAAAAYYY below average. For the year I have an ROI of ~16.5%. If I had run normal that would have been a profit of 7260. Plus, I was bubble boy in the MATH this week when I made a completely idiotic resteal against TripJax. There were 5 of usI had T30k with about 100k in play and 15 people left. After that I lost every single race. It was just absolutely disgusting. That was a great way to cap off the month :). Basically, since my last post I took an AMAZING trip to Texas, and then, since I unexpectedly had no internet while down there for five days, I played about 350 SNGs (so that I could avoid paying kurokitty $500) in the final four days of the month. On Absolute, with no turbos and not a ton of traffic, that's a TON of poker. Ugh. Glad that's over.
On the bright side, the trip to Texas was an awesome experience. I've never been to a mountainous region and southwest Texas definitely fit the bill. We went to Big Bend National Park and basically spent a day hiking through the mountains and throwing rocks at Mexico. I'm not a big nature buff, but this was some cool stuff.
Just incredible views all around...
Well, that's really I have for ya. I'm almost through two chapters of the book. An excerpt will very likely be posted early next week.
On the bright side, the trip to Texas was an awesome experience. I've never been to a mountainous region and southwest Texas definitely fit the bill. We went to Big Bend National Park and basically spent a day hiking through the mountains and throwing rocks at Mexico. I'm not a big nature buff, but this was some cool stuff.
Just incredible views all around...
Well, that's really I have for ya. I'm almost through two chapters of the book. An excerpt will very likely be posted early next week.
Monday, May 21, 2007
SNG Bankroll Requirements
I'm going to answer a question that was asked by kurokitty. If anyone else has random SNG questions or just general questions I'll probably be willing to dedicate a post to it since my life is generally boring and finding a lot of topics to write about is a challenge.
Note: specific questions are good...questions like "what is your SNG strategy?" obviously are not answerable in one post
kurokitty: What are your 'roll requirements for SNGs, how many buy-ins do you need?
Well, its actually a somewhat complicated question. Its a little bit differnt for every person. For me, its very simple. I like to have 100 buyins at all times because I expect a large portion of my income to come from poker.
How many buyins YOU need to play SNGs is dependent on a few factors:
1. What is your ROI?
2. Are you willing to move down during a downswing?
3. Is your bankroll replaceable if you go busto?
The higher your ROI, the smaller your bankroll can be. If you're beating a game for a sustained 20% then you can probably get away with having 50 buyins. If you're beating a game for 5% or less you probably should keep about 200 buyins. Of course, if you're willing to move down then you can keep whatever roll you want as long as you're disciplined enough to move down when needed and not take shots outside your roll. If you can replace your roll (and you're a winning player of course) then I think it can be appropriate to take shots on occasion.
Basically, if you're looking to play recreationally, you can get away with 50 pretty easily, but if you're going to play professionally, I'd recommend at least 100 buyins. I'm beating the 44s on Absolute Poker for about a 17% ROI (that's DESTROYING the game) and I'm still keeping 100 buyins. Could I get away with less? Yeah probably, but when I went 3 for 56 a couple weeks ago I would have been basically broke if I had 50 buyins. Now, those kind of runs are basically unheard of (easily the worst run I've ever had), but if you play long enough they're going to happen. That's just variance.
Hope this is helpful for everyone.
Note: specific questions are good...questions like "what is your SNG strategy?" obviously are not answerable in one post
kurokitty: What are your 'roll requirements for SNGs, how many buy-ins do you need?
Well, its actually a somewhat complicated question. Its a little bit differnt for every person. For me, its very simple. I like to have 100 buyins at all times because I expect a large portion of my income to come from poker.
How many buyins YOU need to play SNGs is dependent on a few factors:
1. What is your ROI?
2. Are you willing to move down during a downswing?
3. Is your bankroll replaceable if you go busto?
The higher your ROI, the smaller your bankroll can be. If you're beating a game for a sustained 20% then you can probably get away with having 50 buyins. If you're beating a game for 5% or less you probably should keep about 200 buyins. Of course, if you're willing to move down then you can keep whatever roll you want as long as you're disciplined enough to move down when needed and not take shots outside your roll. If you can replace your roll (and you're a winning player of course) then I think it can be appropriate to take shots on occasion.
Basically, if you're looking to play recreationally, you can get away with 50 pretty easily, but if you're going to play professionally, I'd recommend at least 100 buyins. I'm beating the 44s on Absolute Poker for about a 17% ROI (that's DESTROYING the game) and I'm still keeping 100 buyins. Could I get away with less? Yeah probably, but when I went 3 for 56 a couple weeks ago I would have been basically broke if I had 50 buyins. Now, those kind of runs are basically unheard of (easily the worst run I've ever had), but if you play long enough they're going to happen. That's just variance.
Hope this is helpful for everyone.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
What a week!
Sooooooooooooooooo...between a Cubs game (I hate the White Sox!!!), a friend's graduation, and helping a roommate moving out of the house, this has been an interesting week...haven't had much of a chance to play poker though. That's unfortunate. I've got some serious work to do if I don't want to end up $500 in debt to kurokitty which I will if I don't get to 1,000 games this month. I'm not to worried about it, but the end of the month might not be an incredibly social one for me :) I really didn't pick the best month to do this...its kind of a crazy month for me, but I'm happy that I'm forcing myself to play more. I feel like my poker tolerance is growing. 6 months ago it was pretty crazy for me to sit down and play more than 15 games in one setting without losing focus. Now sessions of 40+ games where I feel like I'm not losing focus or playing anything less than my A game are common. That makes me feel like I'm making progress. Really I guess that's the main reason I'm trying to play so much.
Anyhow, its been a pretty decent week even though today was pretty horrible. Can't really complain too much.
Today: 53 $44 sngs played, -$496
May: 500 $44 sngs played, +$2156
2007: 2184 $44 sngs played, +$16052
Anyhow, its been a pretty decent week even though today was pretty horrible. Can't really complain too much.
Today: 53 $44 sngs played, -$496
May: 500 $44 sngs played, +$2156
2007: 2184 $44 sngs played, +$16052
Monday, May 14, 2007
What's this? 2 winning days in a row?
Today: 34 $44 sngs played, +$520
May: 348 $44 sngs played, +$1912
2007: 2066 $44 sngs played, +$16052
Today was a great day.
May: 348 $44 sngs played, +$1912
2007: 2066 $44 sngs played, +$16052
Today was a great day.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
This is crazy!
I've played over 4,000 SNGs at the $44 level on Absolute Poker. Yesterday was the worst day I've ever had playing these. Today was the best day I've ever had. Back to back...that's crazy. Here are the stats:
Today: 37 $44 sngs played, +$1036
May: 348 $44 sngs played, +$1392
2007: 2032 $44 sngs played, +$15532
Today: 37 $44 sngs played, +$1036
May: 348 $44 sngs played, +$1392
2007: 2032 $44 sngs played, +$15532
Happy Mother's Day
I highly doubt my mom is reading this, but who knows...Happy Mother's Day mom...I love you.
So chapter one of the book is probably the most complex part of the book since it deals with ICM. It provides a basic explanation of ICM and also includes some reasons it is used and some very very basic application. Basically, its mostly written out, but I'm not satisfied that it will be understandable to someone who is unfamiliar with the concept. Its a work in progress. I'm going to Texas in a couple weeks and I'll have about 8 hours in the car during the trip (I'm flying in with my mom, but my cousins live in the middle of west Texas, so its still a bit of a drive). If I don't have it done after that I'll be mildly upset with myself. O well...its a work in progress. I expected things to be more difficult than I assumed they would be...if that makes sense.
Anyhow, since I suck at meeting self-imposed deadlines, I'm posting the hands from the end of an SNG I played the other day. This is some really basic stuff that can improve your extreme short stack game around the bubble (I'm talking < 1BB in your stack). I lost an all in to the big stack the hand before this sequence. I see sooooooo many people who get frustrated and just stick in their last few chips with basically any two in frustration. This is a huge mistake. According to a basic ICM calculator, there is still a 14.52% chance that (assuming we play equally as well as our opponents) we'll make the money here. If you don't know what ICM is don't worry...we'll get to that soon. Sufficive to say its a really bad decision to just give up here.
My apologies for this hand history converter. It really sucks and doesn't give as much info as I'd like it too. Its the only one that works with AP SNG hands though and its better than trying to read through long, ugly hand histories. I'll fill in the blanks the best I can. BTW, I'm playing under Duderino_AB on Absolute.
Here we go:
Absolute Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t300/t600
4 players
Seat 1 - HAZELEYEZ26 ($4600 in chips)
Seat 6 - ROOFER45 ($2270 in chips)
Seat 7 - DUDERINO_AB ($170 in chips)
Seat 8 - DR_LOVE ($6460 in chips)
Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is Button with 2c qc
UTG calls t600 (pot was t900), Hero folds, SB calls t300 (pot was t1500), BB checks.
Flop: 3d js 3s (t1800, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks.
Turn: 7c (t1800, 3 players)
SB bets t600, 2 folds.
Uncalled bets: t600 returned to SB.
Results:
Final pot: t1800
This first hand is an easy fold. We're going to be facing an all-in situation the next hand even if we call and win, and we have a weak hand that will have to win 4 handed. No brainer.
Absolute Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t150/t300
4 players
Seat 1 - HAZELEYEZ26 ($4600 in chips)
Seat 6 - ROOFER45 ($1070 in chips)
Seat 7 - DUDERINO_AB ($170 in chips)
Seat 8 - DR_LOVE ($7660 in chips)
Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is BB with ah 10s
Button calls t600, (pot was t450), SB folds.
Flop: kh 4s qs (t750, 2 players)
Turn: 5s (t750, 2 players)
River: 10d (t750, 2 players)
Results:
Final pot: t750
This hand we are in the BB and we are forced all-in since the blind is bigger than our stack. If we weren't in the blinds this would once again be a fold. Why you ask? Its very likely that we have the best hand isn't it? Yes. However, at this stage of the tournament winning the hand still would not help us enough. Even if we quadrupled up (which would be unlikely even though we probably have the best hand...we just aren't that likely to win against 3 other hands) we'd still have just greater than 1BB in our stack. The idea right now is survival...not building a stack. We need to put ourselves at risk as little as possible. Anyhow...we won this particular hand so now we've at least got about 1BB to play with.
Absolute Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t300/t600
4 players
Seat 1 - HAZELEYEZ26 ($4600 in chips)
Seat 6 - ROOFER45 ($770 in chips)
Seat 7 - DUDERINO_AB ($510 in chips)
Seat 8 - DR_LOVE ($7620 in chips)
Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is SB with 9s 10c
UTG calls t600 (pot was t900), Button folds, Hero folds, BB checks.
Flop: kh 3d 10s (t1500, 2 players)
BB bets t1200, UTG folds.
Uncalled bets: t1200 returned to BB.
Results:
Final pot: t1500
The reason I folded this hand is somewhat complex. With blinds at 300/600 I'm left with T210 when I fold here. This again is a no brainer of a call just looking at pot odds. However, I think looking at tournament equity this becomes a reasonably easy fold considering stack sizes and the activity of my opponents. My thought process is this. I've got a hand that isn't horrible and could certainly draw out against two others, but I have one thing to my advantage. Since ROOFER45 has misplayed several hands and made himself a shortstack, he will now be forced in before I will. The next time the blinds come around he will be in the BB for all but 170 of his chips. Since I have 210 in my stack after I fold here (and assuming we both fold around back to our blinds which is very highly likely) he will either call for his last 170 when he's in the BB (HAZELEYES26 has been very active and will probably just push him in if the big stack doesn't) or he'll fold and be left with 170. Either way he'll be at risk before me. Obviously he is if he goes in on his BB, but then the next hand we'll both be forced in and I'll have him covered since I'll have 40 more chips. I would win against him exactly 50% of the time since we both would have random hands. At that point I'm making the money approximately 50% of the time. Considering that both the big stacks have been active I think its safe to assume that one of them will at least limp. This is great for me because, since I have ROOFER45 covered, I don't need to win to make the money here...I just need him to not win the hand. Therefore the more people who enter the hand, the better it is for me.
In any case if I call for my last 210 here with T9o I win the hand and stay alive about 30% of the time depending on what range you give the Button limper. Also, even when I win that 30% of the time, I'm still missing out on the money a significant amount of the time since ROOFER45 still has 770 in chips. If I fold here, I'm putting myself in a much better spot.
For the sake of not making this post any longer I'm just going to tell you what happened from here on out. We folded around to ROOFER45's BB, HAZELEYEZ26 pushed all in of course, ROOFER45 folded, we were both all in on the next hand, HAZELEYEZ26 pushed again with A2o and flopped a wheel. Both ROOFER and I were eliminated on that hand, but I cashed since I had him covered going into the hand. That my friends is the anatomy of a shortstacked bubble. Some of that was probably confusing so if you have questions don't hesitate to ask!
So chapter one of the book is probably the most complex part of the book since it deals with ICM. It provides a basic explanation of ICM and also includes some reasons it is used and some very very basic application. Basically, its mostly written out, but I'm not satisfied that it will be understandable to someone who is unfamiliar with the concept. Its a work in progress. I'm going to Texas in a couple weeks and I'll have about 8 hours in the car during the trip (I'm flying in with my mom, but my cousins live in the middle of west Texas, so its still a bit of a drive). If I don't have it done after that I'll be mildly upset with myself. O well...its a work in progress. I expected things to be more difficult than I assumed they would be...if that makes sense.
Anyhow, since I suck at meeting self-imposed deadlines, I'm posting the hands from the end of an SNG I played the other day. This is some really basic stuff that can improve your extreme short stack game around the bubble (I'm talking < 1BB in your stack). I lost an all in to the big stack the hand before this sequence. I see sooooooo many people who get frustrated and just stick in their last few chips with basically any two in frustration. This is a huge mistake. According to a basic ICM calculator, there is still a 14.52% chance that (assuming we play equally as well as our opponents) we'll make the money here. If you don't know what ICM is don't worry...we'll get to that soon. Sufficive to say its a really bad decision to just give up here.
My apologies for this hand history converter. It really sucks and doesn't give as much info as I'd like it too. Its the only one that works with AP SNG hands though and its better than trying to read through long, ugly hand histories. I'll fill in the blanks the best I can. BTW, I'm playing under Duderino_AB on Absolute.
Here we go:
Absolute Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t300/t600
4 players
Seat 1 - HAZELEYEZ26 ($4600 in chips)
Seat 6 - ROOFER45 ($2270 in chips)
Seat 7 - DUDERINO_AB ($170 in chips)
Seat 8 - DR_LOVE ($6460 in chips)
Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is Button with 2c qc
UTG calls t600 (pot was t900), Hero folds, SB calls t300 (pot was t1500), BB checks.
Flop: 3d js 3s (t1800, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks.
Turn: 7c (t1800, 3 players)
SB bets t600, 2 folds.
Uncalled bets: t600 returned to SB.
Results:
Final pot: t1800
This first hand is an easy fold. We're going to be facing an all-in situation the next hand even if we call and win, and we have a weak hand that will have to win 4 handed. No brainer.
Absolute Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t150/t300
4 players
Seat 1 - HAZELEYEZ26 ($4600 in chips)
Seat 6 - ROOFER45 ($1070 in chips)
Seat 7 - DUDERINO_AB ($170 in chips)
Seat 8 - DR_LOVE ($7660 in chips)
Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is BB with ah 10s
Button calls t600, (pot was t450), SB folds.
Flop: kh 4s qs (t750, 2 players)
Turn: 5s (t750, 2 players)
River: 10d (t750, 2 players)
Results:
Final pot: t750
This hand we are in the BB and we are forced all-in since the blind is bigger than our stack. If we weren't in the blinds this would once again be a fold. Why you ask? Its very likely that we have the best hand isn't it? Yes. However, at this stage of the tournament winning the hand still would not help us enough. Even if we quadrupled up (which would be unlikely even though we probably have the best hand...we just aren't that likely to win against 3 other hands) we'd still have just greater than 1BB in our stack. The idea right now is survival...not building a stack. We need to put ourselves at risk as little as possible. Anyhow...we won this particular hand so now we've at least got about 1BB to play with.
Absolute Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t300/t600
4 players
Seat 1 - HAZELEYEZ26 ($4600 in chips)
Seat 6 - ROOFER45 ($770 in chips)
Seat 7 - DUDERINO_AB ($510 in chips)
Seat 8 - DR_LOVE ($7620 in chips)
Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is SB with 9s 10c
UTG calls t600 (pot was t900), Button folds, Hero folds, BB checks.
Flop: kh 3d 10s (t1500, 2 players)
BB bets t1200, UTG folds.
Uncalled bets: t1200 returned to BB.
Results:
Final pot: t1500
The reason I folded this hand is somewhat complex. With blinds at 300/600 I'm left with T210 when I fold here. This again is a no brainer of a call just looking at pot odds. However, I think looking at tournament equity this becomes a reasonably easy fold considering stack sizes and the activity of my opponents. My thought process is this. I've got a hand that isn't horrible and could certainly draw out against two others, but I have one thing to my advantage. Since ROOFER45 has misplayed several hands and made himself a shortstack, he will now be forced in before I will. The next time the blinds come around he will be in the BB for all but 170 of his chips. Since I have 210 in my stack after I fold here (and assuming we both fold around back to our blinds which is very highly likely) he will either call for his last 170 when he's in the BB (HAZELEYES26 has been very active and will probably just push him in if the big stack doesn't) or he'll fold and be left with 170. Either way he'll be at risk before me. Obviously he is if he goes in on his BB, but then the next hand we'll both be forced in and I'll have him covered since I'll have 40 more chips. I would win against him exactly 50% of the time since we both would have random hands. At that point I'm making the money approximately 50% of the time. Considering that both the big stacks have been active I think its safe to assume that one of them will at least limp. This is great for me because, since I have ROOFER45 covered, I don't need to win to make the money here...I just need him to not win the hand. Therefore the more people who enter the hand, the better it is for me.
In any case if I call for my last 210 here with T9o I win the hand and stay alive about 30% of the time depending on what range you give the Button limper. Also, even when I win that 30% of the time, I'm still missing out on the money a significant amount of the time since ROOFER45 still has 770 in chips. If I fold here, I'm putting myself in a much better spot.
For the sake of not making this post any longer I'm just going to tell you what happened from here on out. We folded around to ROOFER45's BB, HAZELEYEZ26 pushed all in of course, ROOFER45 folded, we were both all in on the next hand, HAZELEYEZ26 pushed again with A2o and flopped a wheel. Both ROOFER and I were eliminated on that hand, but I cashed since I had him covered going into the hand. That my friends is the anatomy of a shortstacked bubble. Some of that was probably confusing so if you have questions don't hesitate to ask!
Ran gross today!
My worst day ever playing exclusively $44 sngs. Yikes! The fact that this is the worst day I've ever had shows you that I've been pretty lucky, but still...this was just nuts!
Here are the stats:
Today: 35 $44 sngs played, -$460
May: 311 $44 sngs played, +$356
2007: 1995 $44 sngs played, +$14,496
Here are the stats:
Today: 35 $44 sngs played, -$460
May: 311 $44 sngs played, +$356
2007: 1995 $44 sngs played, +$14,496
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Perspective
Sometimes poker and just life in general is put into perspective in a hurry. I haven't blogged or played for the past few days because one of my friends from college was killed in a hunting accident. I hadn't seen him in about a year, but its still just shocking. I remember so many good times and its just impossible to think that someone so young and full of energy could be gone. I'm not really sad, because he wasn't a huge part of my life - although we did make some awesome memories - but it definitely makes me thing alot about life in general. I appreciate the people around me that much more and it reminds me again that life is for living. Live every day to the fullest and never miss an opportunity to do something great.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
You do the MATH
My MATH debut was ever so slightly different from my Mookie debut. By ever so slightly different I mean completely opposite. Mookie = 1st. MATH = last! I ran KK into AA on the 3rd hand of the tourney and I was done. Gross. It was a hand I probably coulda laid down, but having never played against my opponent, I feel good about getting it in there preflop. No worries...you'll have that. On a positive note I did have my first big day in about two weeks playing SNGs. I won ~$400 a couple days ago but I was up $900 that day before a massive downswing at the end of the day so I don't really count that. Up over $600 today and passed the 15k mark for the year!
Here are my results from today:
Today: 35 $44 sngs played, +$656
May: 236 $44 sngs played, +$1100
2007: 1920 $44 sngs played, +$15,240
Again, I have a really great cause that I'm going to donate half of my Mookie winnings to this week. I'll post about that tomorrow.
Here are my results from today:
Today: 35 $44 sngs played, +$656
May: 236 $44 sngs played, +$1100
2007: 1920 $44 sngs played, +$15,240
Again, I have a really great cause that I'm going to donate half of my Mookie winnings to this week. I'll post about that tomorrow.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Bleh
Here are my stats for today. I'm really really really tired of running bad. I'm ready to run well again at some point. Please?
Today: 40 $44 sngs played, $40
May: 201 $44 sngs played, +$444
2007: 1889 $44 sngs played, +$14,584
Also, big props to Mookie for all the pub he's given me for winning the Mookie last week. I'll be defending this week for sure! Also, I'll be donating half of my winnings this week to a great cause. Details on that tomorrow or Tuesday. Here is my champion's profile on Mookie's blog. Check it out.
Today: 40 $44 sngs played, $40
May: 201 $44 sngs played, +$444
2007: 1889 $44 sngs played, +$14,584
Also, big props to Mookie for all the pub he's given me for winning the Mookie last week. I'll be defending this week for sure! Also, I'll be donating half of my winnings this week to a great cause. Details on that tomorrow or Tuesday. Here is my champion's profile on Mookie's blog. Check it out.
Book Progress
I'm almost done with chapter one of the book. It basically just deals with the concept of Indepedent Chip Modeling (ICM) which is the basic building block of SNG strategy. I'll post an excerpt here sometime this week probably when its finished.
Yesterday's results:
Today: 36 $44 sngs played, -$36
May: 161 $44 sngs played, +$380
2007: 1845 $44 sngs played, +$14,544
Yesterday's results:
Today: 36 $44 sngs played, -$36
May: 161 $44 sngs played, +$380
2007: 1845 $44 sngs played, +$14,544
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Who wants free money?
I need some motivation so here's the deal. If anyone is reading this I'll give $500 to the first person to comment on this post if I don't play 1,000 $44 SNGs on Absolute this month. Through the first four days I'm just barely behind pace as I've logged 125. That's right. You aren't putting up anything. If I get to 1,000 I just don't pay you. That's all. If I don't get to 1,000 I'll pay you $500.
Here's my results from today:
Today: 20 $44 sngs played, $416
May: 125 $44 sngs played, +$440
2007: 1809 $44 sngs played, +$14,580
Here's my results from today:
Today: 20 $44 sngs played, $416
May: 125 $44 sngs played, +$440
2007: 1809 $44 sngs played, +$14,580
Friday, May 4, 2007
Frustration!
Stats for today:
Today: 33 $44 sngs played, -$84
May: 105 $44 sngs played, +$24
2007: 1789 $44 sngs played, +$14,164
I've now run break even over my last 270 SNGs. I'm basically used to streaks like this by now. I know that they are going to happen (and probably worse than this over the long run), but its still frustrating. Even though I'm frustrated I don't feel like my level of play is dropping at all which is when I'd really be worried. O well...that's variance.
Played my first Riverchaser tonight and finished in the bottom third because I had to let my roommate play for me for a little bit. I was challenged to a game of apartment baseball, and when I'm challenged, I step up to the plate...bottomline. After dominating my unsuspecting opponent I returned to see my chipstack cut in half by my clueless roommate. Not much I could do from there and I was gone around 45-50th I think. O well...
Today: 33 $44 sngs played, -$84
May: 105 $44 sngs played, +$24
2007: 1789 $44 sngs played, +$14,164
I've now run break even over my last 270 SNGs. I'm basically used to streaks like this by now. I know that they are going to happen (and probably worse than this over the long run), but its still frustrating. Even though I'm frustrated I don't feel like my level of play is dropping at all which is when I'd really be worried. O well...that's variance.
Played my first Riverchaser tonight and finished in the bottom third because I had to let my roommate play for me for a little bit. I was challenged to a game of apartment baseball, and when I'm challenged, I step up to the plate...bottomline. After dominating my unsuspecting opponent I returned to see my chipstack cut in half by my clueless roommate. Not much I could do from there and I was gone around 45-50th I think. O well...
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
My First Mookie!
So I decided to dive into the blogger tournies a bit. I put $500 on FTP and figured we'll see what happens. Without being too arrogant I figured it was safe to assume that I was better than the majority of the field. I was pretty pleasantly surprised by the quality of the play for the most part. There were a few guys who I was very impressed with and quite a few more very solid players. There were definitely a lot of people who just had very little if any concept of how to play around the bubble, but that's to be expected especially when many of the players in a tourney like this probably aren't regular tourney players. I was able to steal quite a few chips on my way to the final table and eventually the win. That's right! The win!!! I took down my first The Mookie in my first ever attempt!
The $200 and whatever prize really wasn't a big deal - I win about that in any normal sng win - but this is definitely some bragging rights. I'm pretty tired but I'll give everybody a quick rundown of events from memory the best I can. Things started out pretty well. I think I had AA twice in the first level and basically ended up with about 4k in chips right off the bat. I hung right around there until blinds were at 120/240/25. At that point Lucko caught the wrong end of me getting a nice run of cards. He kept raising to 655 and I kept on raising all in. This happened I think 3 times in 9 hands or so. The first one I had A3d in the BB and he raised that from the CO or Button...don't remember. I felt like it was a pretty standard steal and with about 4k in chips I could push him off with a resteal push. He had about 8k at the time and I'd played very tight up to that point so I didn't see him being in a big hurry to get involved. My resteal was successful. Then, next hand if I remember right, he made the same raise and I woke up with JJ. I figured I'd go all in again and maybe get paid by a hand like Ax or smaller pocket pairs. He folded again. My next BB the exact same situation came up with the exact same raise. I had JJ again and pushed again. He folded a third time and told me if I pushed again he was calling me. I told him I had the hand every time, but I'm not sure he believed. I think I kind of came off as a dick and I really didn't mean to at all. Lucko if you're reading this no hard feelings okay? After that it was pretty smooth sailing with normal blind steals. Nothing really of note except getting caught stealing by iam23skidoo. I raised to 800 with T7h on the button and he reraised to 2100. I didn't think he was that strong and he gave me pretty good odds to take a look. The flop came J high with 2 hearts. He pushed in for his last 1500 or so and it was a pretty easy call with the flush draw...I may have had an inside straight too but don't remember and I'm too tired to look right now. I missed my draw and that left me at about 2500, but I was able to steal my way back to about 4500, split a pot with AJ against AA all in preflop (extremely lucky) and then double up with AK in about 5 minutes. After that it was smooth sailing to the bubble. I was chip leader or one of them anyways at ~17k when the worst hand of the tourney happened. 9 were paid and we were down to 10 with 5 at each table. Mookie was the shorty with about 4500. He raised to 3k UTG. I look down and what to my wondering eyes does appear? Pocket Aces just ship that bounty right over here! I smooth call and the flop is KJX. Mookie pushes and of course I call. He turns over TT. Turn is a blank and then the river of course is the T. Brutal. I can't really complain considering how well I ran in this thing, but that was just nasty. Can't fault Mookie for playing it that way either...nothing wrong with it, it just sucked. I was able to grind back to about 20k in chips out of 111k in play going into the final table and Mookie did eventually become the bubble boy if I remember correctly. The final table wasn't really that interesting. Basically me raising a ton and calling all ins when I had odds to. I got some pretty good cards and eventually got to heads up where I felt that I played extremely well. If you read this blog at all you know I'm an SNG player so deep stack heads up (by that I mean more than 20BB in play) is not my specialty at all. I don't remember any of the hands imparticular except that last one where I won a race with KJo against 88. Jack spiked on the flop and there you go! Thanks to anyone who played and anyone who took the time to read this. I've been reading several of your blogs for a while now and I hope you can find time/find this interesting enough to stop by here once in a while too.
O yeah...almost forgot. Here are my SNG results today. At least it was a winning day...I hate SNGs...alot...sometimes.
Today: 37 $44 sngs played, +$64
May: 72 $44 sngs played, +$108
2007: 1756 $44 sngs played, +$14,248
The $200 and whatever prize really wasn't a big deal - I win about that in any normal sng win - but this is definitely some bragging rights. I'm pretty tired but I'll give everybody a quick rundown of events from memory the best I can. Things started out pretty well. I think I had AA twice in the first level and basically ended up with about 4k in chips right off the bat. I hung right around there until blinds were at 120/240/25. At that point Lucko caught the wrong end of me getting a nice run of cards. He kept raising to 655 and I kept on raising all in. This happened I think 3 times in 9 hands or so. The first one I had A3d in the BB and he raised that from the CO or Button...don't remember. I felt like it was a pretty standard steal and with about 4k in chips I could push him off with a resteal push. He had about 8k at the time and I'd played very tight up to that point so I didn't see him being in a big hurry to get involved. My resteal was successful. Then, next hand if I remember right, he made the same raise and I woke up with JJ. I figured I'd go all in again and maybe get paid by a hand like Ax or smaller pocket pairs. He folded again. My next BB the exact same situation came up with the exact same raise. I had JJ again and pushed again. He folded a third time and told me if I pushed again he was calling me. I told him I had the hand every time, but I'm not sure he believed. I think I kind of came off as a dick and I really didn't mean to at all. Lucko if you're reading this no hard feelings okay? After that it was pretty smooth sailing with normal blind steals. Nothing really of note except getting caught stealing by iam23skidoo. I raised to 800 with T7h on the button and he reraised to 2100. I didn't think he was that strong and he gave me pretty good odds to take a look. The flop came J high with 2 hearts. He pushed in for his last 1500 or so and it was a pretty easy call with the flush draw...I may have had an inside straight too but don't remember and I'm too tired to look right now. I missed my draw and that left me at about 2500, but I was able to steal my way back to about 4500, split a pot with AJ against AA all in preflop (extremely lucky) and then double up with AK in about 5 minutes. After that it was smooth sailing to the bubble. I was chip leader or one of them anyways at ~17k when the worst hand of the tourney happened. 9 were paid and we were down to 10 with 5 at each table. Mookie was the shorty with about 4500. He raised to 3k UTG. I look down and what to my wondering eyes does appear? Pocket Aces just ship that bounty right over here! I smooth call and the flop is KJX. Mookie pushes and of course I call. He turns over TT. Turn is a blank and then the river of course is the T. Brutal. I can't really complain considering how well I ran in this thing, but that was just nasty. Can't fault Mookie for playing it that way either...nothing wrong with it, it just sucked. I was able to grind back to about 20k in chips out of 111k in play going into the final table and Mookie did eventually become the bubble boy if I remember correctly. The final table wasn't really that interesting. Basically me raising a ton and calling all ins when I had odds to. I got some pretty good cards and eventually got to heads up where I felt that I played extremely well. If you read this blog at all you know I'm an SNG player so deep stack heads up (by that I mean more than 20BB in play) is not my specialty at all. I don't remember any of the hands imparticular except that last one where I won a race with KJo against 88. Jack spiked on the flop and there you go! Thanks to anyone who played and anyone who took the time to read this. I've been reading several of your blogs for a while now and I hope you can find time/find this interesting enough to stop by here once in a while too.
O yeah...almost forgot. Here are my SNG results today. At least it was a winning day...I hate SNGs...alot...sometimes.
Today: 37 $44 sngs played, +$64
May: 72 $44 sngs played, +$108
2007: 1756 $44 sngs played, +$14,248
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Good Riddance April
April was not a fun month. I had 7 of the 15 worst days I've ever had playing SNGs. Just crazy...especially considering the fact I absolutely crush the game that I'm in. My lifetime ROI there is right around 19% which is ridiculously high for tournaments at this level. In April my ROI was right around 11%. Frustration. I also felt like I played better than I ever have. I guess that's just variance. You'll have that. Anyhow, its a new month and hopefully this one goes better.
Here are my results for today:
Today: 35 sngs played, +$44
May: 35 sngs played, +$44
2007: 1719 sngs played, +$14,184
Here are my results for today:
Today: 35 sngs played, +$44
May: 35 sngs played, +$44
2007: 1719 sngs played, +$14,184
Monday, April 30, 2007
Goals, Results, and New Ambitions
For those of you that don't know how sit and go's work, I'll explain a little bit. Basically, I play 9 person tournaments that start as soon as 9 players sit down at the table. They are no limit tournaments with blinds that go every few hands or every few minutes depending on the structure. 50% of the prize pool goes to first place, 30% to second, and 20% to third. These tournaments make up approximately 99% of the time that I spend playing poker. I'm going to try to make a habit out of posting my results here. Here is the first installment of those results:
Today: 30 sngs played, -$204
April: 629 sngs played (I've been way too lazy this year), +$3,212
2007: 1684 sngs played (again I need to stop being lazy and play more), +$14,140
Like I said in my last post, sit and go's currently make up a large portion of my income. I don't really consider myself an expert player, but I am fairly accomplished, and I think I'm one of the best players at the limit I play. I'm currently in the beginning stages of writing an SNG book for beginner's and intermediate players looking to improve and beat low limit SNGs. Obviously I am doing this partially because I feel that I can make a decent amount of money from selling my book on the internet (amazon, ebay, clickbank, etc.), but that's definitely not my only motivation for writing this book. I also have a genuine desire to accomplish something big. I really don't feel like I have had any real major goals to accomplish since I graduated from college last year. This will definitely give me something to shoot for. I'd like to get this done by the end of the summer. This isn't going to be some crappy ebook...its going to be a full instructional book. I expect to get to 100 pages pretty easily and I could see it getting to 200 without too much elaboration. Obviously getting a book that size done in a few months is an ambitious goal, but I think its doable.
My goals for the summer go something like this:
1. Write the book!
2. Get in shape - I'm not a huge lifter, but doing a fair amount of running is probably something I'll do.
3. Play a ton of poker.
4. Quit my real job and find some other source of income besides poker.
Today: 30 sngs played, -$204
April: 629 sngs played (I've been way too lazy this year), +$3,212
2007: 1684 sngs played (again I need to stop being lazy and play more), +$14,140
Like I said in my last post, sit and go's currently make up a large portion of my income. I don't really consider myself an expert player, but I am fairly accomplished, and I think I'm one of the best players at the limit I play. I'm currently in the beginning stages of writing an SNG book for beginner's and intermediate players looking to improve and beat low limit SNGs. Obviously I am doing this partially because I feel that I can make a decent amount of money from selling my book on the internet (amazon, ebay, clickbank, etc.), but that's definitely not my only motivation for writing this book. I also have a genuine desire to accomplish something big. I really don't feel like I have had any real major goals to accomplish since I graduated from college last year. This will definitely give me something to shoot for. I'd like to get this done by the end of the summer. This isn't going to be some crappy ebook...its going to be a full instructional book. I expect to get to 100 pages pretty easily and I could see it getting to 200 without too much elaboration. Obviously getting a book that size done in a few months is an ambitious goal, but I think its doable.
My goals for the summer go something like this:
1. Write the book!
2. Get in shape - I'm not a huge lifter, but doing a fair amount of running is probably something I'll do.
3. Play a ton of poker.
4. Quit my real job and find some other source of income besides poker.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Hello World
My name is Adam. I am a 23 year old semi-professional poker player. I'm starting this blog in order to chronicle my progress - both as a poker player and just in life in general. I graduated from college about a year ago and, for the next few months at least, I have a real job as well. After that who knows.
I started playing poker, like so many others, after watching Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP Main Event in 2003. Up until that point I couldn't have even told you the hand rankings outside of a few I learned from playing various card and board games as a little kid. When I started playing I noticed pretty quickly that I was better than most of my friends. At that point I figured I was the best player in the world, and couldn't lose. My first real money deposit on Party Poker was definitely a humbling experience that made me realize otherwise. I blew through my first $50 deposit (which I figured I was going to make millions off of) in about 15 minutes at the $0.25 tables at Party. Whoops. After that experience I was determined to prove to myself and to my friends that I was a winning player. I searched everywhere I could for poker strategy. I stumbled onto a pretty solid (or at least I thought so at the time) sit and go strategy from poker blogger F Train. Note that this strategy is outdated and probably isn't good for beating anything more than $5 and maybe $10 sit and go's at this point. I'm not sure if it was ever the greatest advice, but it was definitely a winning strategy in the very low limit SNGs that I decided I was going to give a shot. After about a year of up and down play where I was basically breakeven I finally started to show a small profit. During this time I had also ventured into cash games and a few multi table tourneys with a little success there as well. I had begun playing online in January of 2005 and by May of 2006 I had made about $2500. Considering the amount of time I had spent playing that was a pretty pathetic hourly wage, but I was very happy with the progress I had made.
In the middle of May 2006 I graduated from Huntington University. Soon after I took a job with a local radio station while continuing to make a small amount of money playing poker online and a couple local places that had some pretty friendly games going on in "back rooms." About a week after I graduated a friend introduced me to online casino bonuses. Basically, online casinos offered deposit bonus which you had to wager a certain amount to be able to withdraw. If the house edge was small enough that you could make a profit (including the bonus obviously) over the course of the wagering requirement, then it was a bonus that I played. In about a month I made about 10k from these bonuses. This is when I really started to take poker seriously. After I did all the really good casino bonuses I left a bankroll online of about 4k. It was about this time that I discovered Absolute Poker which had some great sit and go games. After playing there for a couple months and making about 5k I moved to Party Poker and started playing the $55 Speed SNGs. When congress passed the UIGEA last October I moved to Stars before moving back to Absolute Poker where I am currently playing.
I ended up making just over 20k in 4 months as an official professional poker player last year and I've made just under 15k so far this year. My goal for the year is 70k, and there is no reason that I shouldn't attain it other than my own laziness...which is part of the reason I'm starting this blog :)
Right now I'm 7 tabling the $44 sngs at Absolute Poker and playing 2/4-5/10 Limit hold'em when I need to mix up to keep my life from becoming too much of a grind. Sorry this post turned into my complete poker story. More about me another day. I'll try to at least post my results here every day that I play and I'll probably post other miscellaneous stuff a couple times a week as well...cheers!
I started playing poker, like so many others, after watching Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP Main Event in 2003. Up until that point I couldn't have even told you the hand rankings outside of a few I learned from playing various card and board games as a little kid. When I started playing I noticed pretty quickly that I was better than most of my friends. At that point I figured I was the best player in the world, and couldn't lose. My first real money deposit on Party Poker was definitely a humbling experience that made me realize otherwise. I blew through my first $50 deposit (which I figured I was going to make millions off of) in about 15 minutes at the $0.25 tables at Party. Whoops. After that experience I was determined to prove to myself and to my friends that I was a winning player. I searched everywhere I could for poker strategy. I stumbled onto a pretty solid (or at least I thought so at the time) sit and go strategy from poker blogger F Train. Note that this strategy is outdated and probably isn't good for beating anything more than $5 and maybe $10 sit and go's at this point. I'm not sure if it was ever the greatest advice, but it was definitely a winning strategy in the very low limit SNGs that I decided I was going to give a shot. After about a year of up and down play where I was basically breakeven I finally started to show a small profit. During this time I had also ventured into cash games and a few multi table tourneys with a little success there as well. I had begun playing online in January of 2005 and by May of 2006 I had made about $2500. Considering the amount of time I had spent playing that was a pretty pathetic hourly wage, but I was very happy with the progress I had made.
In the middle of May 2006 I graduated from Huntington University. Soon after I took a job with a local radio station while continuing to make a small amount of money playing poker online and a couple local places that had some pretty friendly games going on in "back rooms." About a week after I graduated a friend introduced me to online casino bonuses. Basically, online casinos offered deposit bonus which you had to wager a certain amount to be able to withdraw. If the house edge was small enough that you could make a profit (including the bonus obviously) over the course of the wagering requirement, then it was a bonus that I played. In about a month I made about 10k from these bonuses. This is when I really started to take poker seriously. After I did all the really good casino bonuses I left a bankroll online of about 4k. It was about this time that I discovered Absolute Poker which had some great sit and go games. After playing there for a couple months and making about 5k I moved to Party Poker and started playing the $55 Speed SNGs. When congress passed the UIGEA last October I moved to Stars before moving back to Absolute Poker where I am currently playing.
I ended up making just over 20k in 4 months as an official professional poker player last year and I've made just under 15k so far this year. My goal for the year is 70k, and there is no reason that I shouldn't attain it other than my own laziness...which is part of the reason I'm starting this blog :)
Right now I'm 7 tabling the $44 sngs at Absolute Poker and playing 2/4-5/10 Limit hold'em when I need to mix up to keep my life from becoming too much of a grind. Sorry this post turned into my complete poker story. More about me another day. I'll try to at least post my results here every day that I play and I'll probably post other miscellaneous stuff a couple times a week as well...cheers!
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